Mr. Colm Campbell:

Regarding Senator Craughwell's point about recruitment, our two organisations speak at pre-retirement courses. We get access to all of them. They are on Zoom now, though, so the personal interaction with the person who is retiring is not there. Mr. O'Connor and I have attended very many such courses but, as the Senator knows, it really comes down to the business we do before and after the courses, not the talks that we give during them. I presume IUNVA feels the same that Zoom talks are not as satisfactory. That is no one's fault, though.

We would warmly welcome the Senator's veteran's lapel Bill. I can only speak for ONE and cannot be any clearer than that.

We would warmly welcome it. As Mr. Brennan said earlier, It would give Government recognition to those who served. I would certainly warmly welcome it.

I refer to the office of veterans' affairs and the example of the commissioner in Northern Ireland. The office of veterans' affairs operates in a similar manner to the Office of Emergency Planning. It works with all relevant Departments and other key public authorities, in addition to its role as listed in the briefing document, which I will not go through again. We believe it should be staffed by members of the Defence Forces and civil servants. I should probably include a senior officer and senior non-commissioned officer, NCO, from the Defence Forces and similar personnel from the Department of Defence or another civil servant. The commissioner is important in that it is a figure head that is required. I saw Danny Kinahan at services in the North during the weekend. Mr. O'Connor and I met him when he was just appointed and then we met him down here two months ago. He has six personal staff. We are not looking for anything like that. We need a basic office to start with and then let us grow it.

Institutionalisation was referred to earlier. That is exceptionally true for the older veteran. When we joined the Defence Forces, many of the people with whom we joined came from industrial schools and orphanages and literally went from one institution to another. For instance, the Defence Forces' school of music was staffed by boys from the then Artane Boys Band. One can see the impact on the older veterans who came from an institution and joined an institution. It is no surprise that they would end up with us in one of our residential homes.

The abatement issue we raised earlier. We would agree with the member in that regard. It impacts on very good people going into the public sector. As Deputy Stanton said earlier, the private sector will take them no problem so why would the public sector not take them as well? They are good, skilled people who are disciplined and turn up for work every single day. Certainly, the case-----